ARNOLD v. HOLLINGSWORTH

Filing 8

OPINION. Signed by Chief Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 7/6/2016. (tf, n.m.)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

CURTIS L. ARNOLD,

HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE

Petitioner,
Civil Action
No. 16-0993 (JBS)

v.
WARDEN HOLLINGSWORTH,

OPINION
Respondent.

APPEARANCES:
Curtis L. Arnold, Petitioner pro se
#21094-058
FCI Fort Dix
Inmate Mail/Parcels
East: P.O. Box 2000
Fort Dix, NJ 08640
SIMANDLE, Chief Judge:
INTRODUCTION
On May 16, 2016, this Court dismissed Curtis L. Arnold’s
petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 for
lack of jurisdiction. Docket Entry 6. Petitioner now moves for
reconsideration of that order. Motion for Reconsideration,
Docket Entry 7. For the reasons expressed below, the motion is
denied.
BACKGROUND
Petitioner pled guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent
to distribute, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841, 846 on September 13, 2005 in

the United States District Court for the Western District of
North Carolina. Petition, Docket Entry 1 ¶ 4; Memorandum of Law,
Docket Entry 1-1 at 2. On December 19, 2005, the District Court
determined Petitioner’s two prior North Carolina convictions for
possession with intent to sell and deliver cocaine qualified
Petitioner as a career offender and sentenced him to 262 months.
See Arnold v. United States, No. 10-0453, 2015 WL 1457531
(W.D.N.C. Mar. 30, 2015) (denying § 2255 motion), appeal
dismissed, 613 F. App'x 252 (4th Cir. 2015).1
After failing to remove the career offender designation via
motions under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and 18 U.S.C. § 3585, Petitioner
filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus under § 2241 in this
Court on February 17, 2016. He raised two grounds for relief:
(1) “the principle of fundamental fairness requires that
Petitioner’s status as a career offender be deleted from both
his judgment and [commitment] order and pre sentence [sic]
investigation report,” and; (2) “The U.S. Attorney violated
Petitioner’s due process rights by failing to afford Petitioner
the same opportunity afforded to other [similarly situated]
prisoners.” Petition ¶ 13. He asked the Court to remove the
career offender status in light of United States v. Simmons, 649

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“[A] court may take judicial notice of a prior judicial
opinion.” McTernan v. City of York, 577 F.3d 521, 525 (3d Cir.
2009).
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F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (holding North Carolina
convictions are “crimes punishable by a term of imprisonment
exceeding one year” for federal sentencing purposes only when
the defendant's particular criminal history and the nature of
his offense warrant), and to order the U.S. Attorney to permit
other prisoners to challenge their career offender statuses. Id.
¶ 15. After conducting its initial review of the petition, the
Court dismissed the petition for lack of jurisdiction as
Petitioner’s claims were more appropriately brought under §
2255. Order, Docket Entry 6. It declined to transfer the
petition to the Fourth Circuit as Petitioner had already
challenged his career offender status in a § 2255 motion. Slip
Opinion, Docket Entry 5 at 7; see also Arnold, 2015 WL 1457531
at *3-4 (holding motion time-barred and barred by plea
agreement).
Petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration asking the
Court to reinstate his petition asserting the Court
“inadvertently misconstrued Petitioner’s pro se submission as a
challenge to the validity of his sentence, when in fact,
Petitioner is seeking to prohibit an erroneous fact in his Pre
Sentence Report from continuing to prevent him from a reduction
of his sentence . . . .” Motion for Reconsideration at 1. He
further asserts this Court must exercise jurisdiction over the
petition in light of Foote v. United States, 784 F.3d 931 (4th
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Cir. 2015), in which Fourth Circuit held that “relief for
Simmons errors ‘was not a fundamental defect that inherently
result in a complete miscarriage of Justice’ and that relief
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 is not available for such errors.”
Id. at 2.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Local Civil Rule 7.1 allows a party to seek a motion for
reargument or reconsideration of “matter[s] or controlling
decisions which the party believes the Judge or Magistrate Judge
has overlooked . . . .” Local Civ. R. 7.1(i). Whether to grant a
motion for reconsideration is a matter within the Court's
discretion, but it should only be granted where such facts or
legal authority were indeed presented but overlooked. See DeLong
v. Raymond Int'l Inc., 622 F.2d 1135, 1140 (3d Cir. 1980),
overruled on other grounds by Croker v. Boeing Co., 662 F.2d 975
(3d Cir. 1981); see also Williams v. Sullivan, 818 F. Supp. 92,
93 (D.N.J. 1993).
To prevail on a motion for reconsideration, the movant must
show:
(1) an intervening change in the controlling law; (2)
the availability of new evidence that was not available
when the court ... [rendered the judgment in question];
or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or fact
or to prevent manifest injustice.

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U.S. ex rel. Shumann v. Astrazeneca Pharm. L.P., 769 F.3d 837,
848-49 (3d Cir. 2014) (citing Max's Seafood Café ex rel. Lou–
Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999)). The
standard of review involved in a motion for reconsideration is
high and relief is to be granted sparingly. United States v.
Jones, 158 F.R.D. 309, 314 (D.N.J. 1994).
ANALYSIS
Petitioner argues this Court erred in its determination
that it lacked jurisdiction over his petition as he is not
challenging “the validity of his sentence, [instead] Petitioner
is seeking to prohibit an erroneous fact in his Pre Sentence
Report from continuing to prevent him from a reduction of his
sentence . . . .” Motion for Reconsideration at 1. He also
asserts the Fourth Circuit’s Foote case requires this Court to
exercise jurisdiction under § 2241 as his claims cannot be
brought under § 2255. Id. at 2.
First, the submitted petition specifically requested the
Court remove the career offender status from Petitioner’s
“judgment and [commitment] order,” Petition at 6, not just his
presentence report as Petitioner now claims. Challenges to the
validity of a judgment of conviction must be brought under §
2255. Under current Third Circuit precedent, challenges to
career offender status may not be made under § 2241. See United
States v. Brown, 456 F. App’x 79, 81 (3d Cir. 2012) (per curiam)
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(holding prisoner not entitled to proceed under § 2255's “safety
valve” when he “makes no allegation that he is actually innocent
of the crime for which he was convicted, but instead asserts
only that he is ‘innocent’ of being a career offender”)
(internal citation omitted), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 201
(2012). Thus far, the Third Circuit has only permitted cases to
proceed under the safety valve exception “where the conduct that
forms the basis for the conviction has since been deemed noncriminal by an intervening Supreme Court decision that was
unavailable on appeal or during § 2255 proceedings.” Upshaw v.
Warden Lewisburg USP, 634 F. App’x 357, 368 (3d Cir.) (citing In
re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245, 251–52 (3d Cir. 1997)), cert.
denied sub nom. Upshaw v. Ebert, No. 15-9375 (June 27, 2016).
Petitioner’s arguments regarding the Fourth Circuit’s Foote
decision, which is not binding authority on this Court, do not
bring him within those narrow set of circumstances. The fact
that Petitioner disagrees with the Court’s conclusion is not a
basis for reconsideration.
Moreover, Petitioner clearly was not prevented from
challenging his career offender status under § 2255 as he did in
fact challenge his sentence in the Western District of North
Carolina and was denied relief on timeliness and waiver grounds.
Arnold v. United States, No. 10-0453, 2015 WL 1457531 (W.D.N.C.
Mar. 30, 2015). Petitioner is essentially asking this Court to
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grant him the relief the Western District determined was not
permissible under the circumstances. That is not the purpose of
§ 2241. The Court will therefore not reconsider its decision to
dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction. The motion is
denied.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, the motion for
reconsideration is denied. An accompanying Order will be
entered.

July 6, 2016
Date

s/ Jerome B. Simandle
JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Chief U.S. District Judge

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